Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences,

I hope this letter finds you well.

My name is Saskia Muchalov, and I am a third year Fine Art student writing to appeal for a late drop in ENGL200, GNDS215, HIST108, all of which are courses I struggled to complete last semester. In addition, once I met with an academic advisor and reviewed my transcripts, I was encouraged to appeal 3 courses from both the Fall and Winter terms in 2019: MUSC171, ENGL285, and ARTH215. During the past couple of years, I have struggled with being able to complete my assignments due to a varying degree of events and mental-health ailments. Though I am registered with QSAS and did see a psychologist at student wellness in first year, I soon learned Queen¿¿s mainly offers support to short term mental health cases. I recently returned to my previous therapist from high school as she was able to provide me with more consistent support in the form of weekly sessions. In 2019 I had an unknown assailant break into my bedroom at 5 am, after this I felt unsafe in my own home, and scrambled to find a new housing situation as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this was around the time my personal support team was wearing thin and I struggled to reach out for help in the midst of much personal and mental turmoil.

Since then, I¿¿ve been in a very dark place psychologically, which worsened hastily as a result of COVID-19 restrictions that kept me isolated from friends, professors, and family. My attempt at first semester showed me how difficult it was to stay motivated and positive in the absence of my creative peers and Ontario Hall¿¿s studio space. By the end of the semester, my anxiety and depression mounted to a point where my daily ability to function was severely impacted. I was unable to regulate my most basic needs: implementing appropriate sleep patterns, healthy eating habits, and daily exercise. This left me feeling hopeless, ashamed, and embarrassed as I felt I¿¿d lost my sense of creativity alongside my ability to take care of myself. Had I not received an email from Lisa Webb (a student advisor from the Ban Righ Women¿¿s Centre) checking in on my lack of communication, I doubt I would have realized months had gone by without me leaving my own bed. Since then, I¿¿ve moved home for the holidays, and plan on staying for the duration of winter semester in hopes of improving my health and overall quality of living.

Furthermore, in the absence of my creative peers and access to studio-space, I started to feel a grave disconnect from the environment around me which only worsened as time went on. Not only did I feel isolated from my surroundings, I also felt I¿¿d lost touch with my creative side, and overall ability to practice proper emotional regulation. I¿¿ve since found it immensely difficult to catch glimpses of the small beauties I used to see in such a dreary world, while friendly faces on the street are covered by masks and human interaction is limited for the safety of our loved ones.

While I feel truly committed to finishing my degree, I and those who support me, feel it might be best for me to take a break from my academics this term in order to return when I am more confident in who I am and set up for success. Moving home to Toronto has shown me how invaluable the support of my family, therapists, and friends is in aiding me to get back to a healthy mind-set and daily routine. By implementing a schedule of small, attainable goals, I feel I am on the right track to getting back into a healthy body and mindset. As a step in the right direction, I believe focusing on my 2 fine art courses this semester alone is an attainable goal that will help me gain back the self-respect I¿¿ve been sorely lacking. From there, I hope to reimplement myself into more academic courses starting in the Summer 2021 term, particularly focusing on not biting off more than I am able to chew. My education is very important to me, and after working so hard to gain entry into such a secular program in a prestigious university, it would be devastating not to complete my goal and attain this degree.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.


All the best,
Saskia (20066839)